And Sometimes It Rains

Well, it's been a quiet week in Spring, Texas, my home town, out on the edge of the Megalopolis.

Seven weeks from the moment I am writing this I hope to be about half way through the marathon at Ironman Cozumel.

While some might think that's pretty exciting to think about (and in a certain way it is), I can be a glass half-empty kind of guy sometimes--especially when there are 56 days to go in an Ironman buildup.

Something about 15 or so hours of training can do that to a fella that works 55 hours a week in an office. This week was 15 hours and 48 minutes of training including:

• 108 miles on the bike in three sessions of which one was 90 minutes on the trainer
• A bit over 25 miles of running
• About 8000 meters of swimming
  
• One strength session with Miki
  

It is at this point in a build up, especially if you've been going all year, that you start to think you might be over this whole Ironman thing. Everything hurts. Everything is hard.

It's hard to go to sleep when you want to sleep. It's hard to stay awake when you want to stay awake. It's hard to stay asleep when you want to stay asleep. It's hard to get up when you need to get up. It's hard to work. It's hard to train.

But then, sometimes, it rains--a drizzle that is just cool enough to break the back of summer and let you know of autumn's promise. And you get to run in the drizzle and spalsh in the puddle like you're three again. And you get to be three again with your tri club president. Only when she was three, she probably played with Barbie or Strawberry Shortcake instead of riding her pink Barbie bike like a pink predator.

And while Memorial Park is not full, there are others out on a Sunday morning enjoying this small miracle with you. In a city of four million people, there are a few good people enjoying good things.

And the miles tick by while the road goes ever on, bringing darkness into flat and pale grey light.

And then I remember why I would not trade it for anything.

And that's the news from Spring Texas, where all the schools are exemplary, all the food is fast, and all the commutes are above average.

Time Keeps On Slippin'

Well, it's been a quiet week in Spring, Texas, my home town, out on the edge of the Megalopolis.

The weather gave us a head fake this week. Last week, mother nature seemed to leap ahead into the dog days of July with temperatures in the 80s and 90% relative humidity before the sun came up. Windows all over the neighborhood sweated in the darkness, and everyone was required to out the trash or pick up the paper before taking a shower, lest the whole routine of morning ablutions become moot in the sweaty aftermath of merely walking to the curb.

Then, this past weekend, a line of storms came through with a cold front, and we were mercifully transported back into late march. Monday and Tuesday morning the air was cool and crisp and dry. The temperatures and calm conditions in the upper 50s before sun up during a morning ride or swim were pretty much how I imagine heaven will be one day. It was a weird inversion, because at the same time we were experiencing heaven on earth, Minnesota was having high humidity and temperatures in the 90s--call it Houston on earth.

But mother nature and father time were only playing a temporary trick on us, sort of an "Indian Spring," like Indian Summer, only in Houston, our severe weather is follows spring. Things are back to normal weather wise, if not with father time.

This morning, I felt completely out of sorts. It is the first Saturday morning in moths that I did not have to get up early for a bike ride or a run or a race. I went to bed at my normal "toddler hour," and my eyes clicked open like a dairy farmer with insomnia at 0400, but I rolled over and went back to sleep. After a total of 9.5 hours of sleep, I woke again, and I could not remember where I was or what day it was or what I had to do. Usually, I wake with a training peaks workout and a long list of work to-do's, and my little dog brain is synching with Mircosoft Outlook as surely as if my Blackberry connected to an electrode in my skull.

But today, nothing. And it was weird. I don't know what I did with my time before I was swim-bike-running 12 to19 hours a week.

And the time distortion will continue this weekend. On Monday, Memorial Day, I have a race. It's not the first race this season, but it's my first race. Like, EVER. In 2006, The Cap Tex Tri was my first triathlon ever, and now I will return to the race for the first time since. In weird ways, I have the same feelings I had three years ago.

Back then, I was afraid I might not finish, mostly because of the long 1500m swim. Two Ironman finishes later, I'm still scared, not of failure to finish, but simply of failure. I really love the winding, up and down bike course, and I know I can muddle through the run, but for the Love of God I'd finally like to swim decently in the open water. For me, this means just being able to pay attention to my form and swimming long and strong if not fast. But, I'm afraid I'll have my typical freak out and muddle through swim.

Which would put me right back in 2006, which would be weird.

And Father Time taunts and confuses me in all sorts of other ways. My parents arrive today, and when you no longer live with parents, time rushes in all at once. My mother assumes that everything that she has experienced since Christmas has been communicated to me, by telpethy if not by telephone. So while she will have told me fourteen times about an inconsequential event involving a remote acquaintance from our church, she will have neglected to say, "oh, by the way, your dad has had trouble walking. Didn't I tell you?"

That is the reason their trip is rescheduled--to accomodate testing on Tuesday concerning a ruptured lumbar disc that has been troubling him since February. In the last year, dad has gone on a medecine (prematurely in my view) for dementia, has decided to retire, unretire, and retire again, and has become more enfeebled than I think is stricly necessary. And my experience of it is even more rushed, for it happened in one visit in December and a couple of phone calls since. I want to tell him to fight it, but this is foreign to their experience. If the doctor says you need a pill, you take a pill. If the surgeon ways you need surgery, you have surgery. And if you feel old, you stop going to the gym.

Meanwhile, I wax and wane. When I ran with Scuba Steve this week, I felt no different than I remember feeling in my 20s--only I am fitter now. I felt like I had more in common with this 23 year old engineering student than with my 40 to 50 year old law partners. And looking in the mirror, sometimes I see a lean young man in top condition, and others I see a middle aged man in denial--one who is never going to podium or excel no matter how much training is involved.

And it is difficult to know what to feel or what to think. But right now, I feel like Father Time better learn how to swim, because if I see him, I'm going to kick his ass.

And that's the news from Spring, Texas, where all the schools are exemplary, all the food is fast, and all the commutes are below average.

Disinfecting Sunlight for the Cynical Mind

Well, it's been a quiet week in Spring, Texas, my home town, out on the edge of the Megalopolis. The weather has been quite cool, by Texas standards. The 50 degree temps were cool enough to wear long sleeves for the first 10 minutes of my run this morning, although I did notice what must have been a native Texan in Capri length tights, long sleeves, running vest, gloves and ear warmers. My Minnesota friends would, no doubt, have been mystified by this weak constitution indicating an obvious defect in character.

The weather signals that The Day is quickly approaching. The Day is when we in this pluralistic collective will take part in our one common sacrament--casting our votes.

Well, except if you participate in early voting.

Which I do.

Because I don't like to wait in line.

Even for food.

Especially for food.

Especially if that food is a crap sandwich with a side of crap.

Which is all you get to vote for in this or any year.

I guess I better warn you now that if you are a Democrat, or if you are a Republican, and if you think your ideology or party is "The Answer" to the world's problems, you are not going to like this post. You might want to exit now.







**whistling to myself**








Still here?








OK. Here's the deal. I drove by my early polling station three times on two different days before finally concluding that the line out the door was never going to be any shorter--that I would have to stand in line with "the people" in order to cast my ballot. So, I finally did. I know this makes me a really bad person, especially given all those who have suffered persecution and imprisonment and even death for the right to vote. The least I could do is stand in a wee bit of a line, right?

Yeah, I know. And I did.

But I didn't like it much. And because of that, I'm a bad person.

But it gets worse. I'm not even convinced that democracy is intended to enable a society to make the "right" choices for what is best for it. Basically, you get to vote if you can fog a mirror, whether or not you've studied the issues and the candidates. Your vote counts the same if you're a PhD in public policy from Harvard or if you need adult supervision before you can work the voting machine. Knowing this, both the political parties try to buy votes of the uncommitted rabble in the middle by promising goodies that our grandchildren's grandchildren will never pay for, or by playing on fears calculated to get a vote, or at least to keep them from voting for "that guy," even if it means staying home.

This is what it's come to? We can do no better than the worst of the worst--classless and deceptive rhetorical technique that is unworthy of a mediocre, law school mock trial team? Lee Atwater and James Carville and Karl Rove alike would have all gotten their asses canned if they worked on my team. I see better advocacy from the least competent lawyers in town. Half as bad would get any of my associates fired and would permanently injure any good lawyer's credibility with the court. Yet, year after year, the same parties and the same candidates and the same consultants do the same things without being held accountable.

The genius of the our system is not that we make good choices with our collective wisdom, but that we transition power regularly enough through this Rube Goldberg, fear-mongering, pork-barrel, sausage making device that we keep either party from becoming a tyranny. We don't drive down the road so much as we keep weaving from ditch to ditch, two four year olds fighting over the steering column, most of the time moving forward.

So, yeah. I have been dark and poisoned in the mind for much of the last week as the cesspool of political jousting has been eaten up and spewed out the back end of the 24 hour news cycle.

Until tonight.

During my drive home, the "mellow" playlist on my Ipod started with James Taylor and soon I found myself singing with the John Denver songs that followed. Sweet, simple, naive even. But singing. Then the words--about children:

Though the cities start to crumble,
And the towers fall around us,
The sun is slowly fading, and it's colder than the sea,
It is written, "from the desert to the mountains they shall lead us."
By the hand and by the heart, they will comfort you and me.
In their innocence and trusting, they will teach us to be free.

For the children and the flowers are my sisters and my brothers.
Their laughter and their loveliness could clear a cloudy day.
And the song that I am singing, is a prayer to nonbelievers.
Come and stand beside us,
we can find a better way.

And I ate dinner at home. And it was better there.

And that's the news from Spring, Texas, where all the food is fast, all the schools are exemplary, and all the commutes are below average.

Signs of the Apocalypse--Survival in Suburbia

Well, it’s been a quiet week in Spring, Texas, my home town, out on the edge of the Megalopolis. The whether started out a warm and humid Indian Summer, and later there was delightful, dry and cool, fall weather. Oh, and in between there was a natural disaster that caused a billion dollars of damage and still has over a million people without electric power.

So, it was sort of like a judgment day sandwich. A nice warm piece of summer bread on top, a hearty piece of autumn bread on the bottom, all surrounding a heaping serving of nature’s wrath.

Mmmmmm. Tasty.

Now, 11 days on, with no air conditioning in sight, the daytime temperatures are in the upper 80s with humidity to match. Our little corner of suburbia has become some anthropologist’s bizarre Petri dish.

Looking around the cul de sacs, an acute researcher could observe what happens when the suburbs return to the “state of nature,” that time before organized governments or society where the noble savage emerged from the forest and made a social compact with his brethren not to kill and eat each other in exchange for cooperation for mutual survival and the propagation of the species. So, too, the researcher could notice how these pre-societal family progenitors engage in behavior calculated to demonstrate their social dominance or mating potential.

Mostly this has to do with horsepower, and actually one has a sneaking suspicion that these displays have more to do with “compensating.” Just think “Hummer driver.” Read on and you’ll start to get the picture.

You see, when a McMansion becomes a dark, un-air-conditioned box with no workable electronics, one must fill the entertainment gap and maintain one’s social status in some fashion. Thus, the circle on which we live went from the silence after the storm through a crescendo of internal combustion engines. Now, there is a steady hum as generators.

But in this suburban, American, Petri dish, it hardly suffices to have a mini-generator merely to run the refrigerator, providing only the necessity of food to go along with water and shelter. No, once the social compact has been entered, and we have refrained from attempting to destroy our neighbors, we must nevertheless compete with them. Thus, the corpulent, cubicle dwellers of Magnolia Way have become overnight experts on the engineering limitations and features of power generators.

At minimum, an American, suburban generator must be capable of running the refrigerator, some fans, a couple lamps, and most importantly, the flat screen television, whose glow must and will be seen from the street--a beacon to principle that life depends not only on food, shelter and water, but also on entertainment. The cry might well go up, “Give me Leno, HBO and late night Skin-e-max or give me death.”

But the perceptive sociological observer would note that merely having a few lights on inside the house is insufficient plumage for certain of the species to establish their place within the social hierarchy. Who knows what type of generating capacity is necessary to have one’s house awash and ablaze in light sufficient to hold a party and crank up the music in apparent ignorance of the fact that your neighbors all have their windows open. Or maybe they wanted everyone to hear their music, hmmm? And is this a bigger statement of social dominance than pulling an RV into your driveway and living in air conditioned comfort, albeit in fewer square feet than the party house?

Of course, I grew up Baptist, Calvinistic and Puritanical before fundamentalism was cool. And folks like us are conspicuous in our plainness and proud of our humility. We believe in conspicuous non-consumption. We drive 10 year old Toyotas, even if we could afford new Hummers. We save our money and pay off our credit cards. We have no mortgage crisis, because we bought less house than the bank want to lend us money for. We buy suits off the rack, and used race wheels.

OK, maybe race wheels is a bad example.

Add to this that I descend from stock whose Native American progenitor refused to enroll with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and refused to take handouts lest he become beholden to the government and less human as a consequence. (True story. I come by my conservative nature genetically). We moved one step ahead of civilization for decades on end, living on the frontier and making our own way. We are the self-reliant few who made the Monroe doctrine a reality--conquering the prairies, taming the west, pushing America’s manifest destiny from sea to shining sea.

Yeah, that was us, recent Euro-trash immigrants. You can thank me later.

People like this have no need of assistance, government or otherwise, nor of creature comforts unnecessary to subsistence and survival. We can live for weeks on end in the dark, create fire with flint and steel, boil water, consume non-perishable food, and jeer in quiet, self-satisfaction at the softness of our pasty, suburban neighbors while gripping our firearms in the darkened recesses of our homes.

But did I mention that Mrs. Greyhound and ‘Pounce arrived home on Monday? And did I mention that our weather gods have once again reminded us that this is Houston, and so one must always be coated with a salty layer of slime while drops of sweat trickle down your backbone and over your belly? And did I mention that Mrs. and ‘Pounce spent one (only one) sticky night with no fans and no ac on Monday? And did I mention that, low these 12 days after the storm, F-ING CENTERPOINT has not managed to get the power restored in a neighborhood with very few downed trees and NO OVERHEAD POWER LINES? And did I mention that one of Mrs. Greyhound’s friend had her power restored, and no longer has need of the gigantic, ultra-smoothe, Subaru generator that powered essentials in three houses in their neighborhood?

Twenty-four hours after Mrs. Greyhound’s return, we had a giant, Subaru generator humming on our back porch. To my Native American forefathers, this, undoubtedly, is a sign of the apocalypse.

Gosh that fan felt good last night.

Well, that's the News from Spring, Texas, where all the schools are exemplary, all the food is fast, and all the commutes are below average.

New School/Old School

Well, it's been a quiet week in Spring, Texas, my hometown, out on the edge of the Megalopolis. The Megalopolis, along with nearly all the Gulf Coast, was again in the "cone of death" representing the potential path of a hurricane, this time Hurricane Ike. Old School residents of the Megalopolis have not yet become concerned. They simply watch the local news, and when the man standing in front of the green screen tells them to be concerned, they just blink because they've seen this all before. On this one, I kind of tend toward the New School, haunting the weather underground online and comparing computer models. Those models have been shifting with alarming regularity, but it looks like we'll escape the worst of it again.

So, New School on that, but I had an Old School workout last night. I went to the track where my marathon plan coach had prescribed, after a warmup, 5x1000 at T pace on one minute's rest to be followed by 6x200 at R pace on :45 rest to be followed by a cool down. While that sounds very technical, I was without a watch or a heart rate monitor. So, I went decidedly old school. Run hard, rest as little as you can get by with, then run hard again. I would not have made the fifth 1000 were it not for the presence of Coach T and her main squeeze Scuba Steve running with me. Old School guys don't like to give up (or puke up) in front of the kids.

And the recovery nutrition? Also Old School: Pizza and Beer.

And the swim this morning? Old School again. Outside, in the dark as soon as the pool opens. First in. Swim hard. Don't even think about quitting until you've got at least 2k in the bank. And none of these "jammers" or "square leg" swimsuits for old guys without waists. Old School. Little black Speedo baby.

OK, that was way TMI. But I've rediscovered a couple of abs and some ribs in the last week or so, so I was all wild and crazy.

But two nights ago I went New School in the dad department. While Superpounce is a pretty adventurous eater for a kid, we have not been able to get her to eat anything with beans in it, particularly black beans. Now, an Old School dad would just put out the food and say, "You'll eat it and you'll like it. Either that or you'll go hungry." Actually, an Old School dad would not have cooked the food, but would be inquiring about the whereabouts of his meat loaf and potatos while watching Walter Cronkite from his La-Z-Boy, alternately drinking a Miller High Life and snoring.

Ahhhhhh . . . . those were the days.

Oops, did I say that out loud? Sorry, I digress.

A New School dad, however, not only cooks food, he resorts to strategerie to get his offspring to eat the healthy options he puts on the table.

I know 'Pounce enjoys spicy foods like my Black Beans and Quinoa, and I know she likes to cook with me. So, I figured she would eat it if she was the one who "cooked it." I was right. I prepared all the ingredients before hand--measured the cumin and cayenne pepper, chopped the onions, chopped the garlic, put the black beans and corn aside, gathered two cups of chicken broth and 3/4 cup of Quinoa, measured a couple table spoons of olive oil into the wok and called the 'Pounce any time it was time to saute, stir, pour, combine or "cook."

She loved it, both the cooking and the eating. And when Mrs. Greyhound commented on how good it tasted, 'Pounce tapped her chest like an NBA player who just sank a three point shot and said:

"I know--I cooked it."

And that's the news from Spring, Texas, where all the schools are exemplary, all the food is fast, and all the commutes, are below average.

Elegy

Well, it's been a quiet week in Spring, Texas, my home, out on the edge of the Megalopolis. Summer has come to an end. Odd to think of it, because it will be in the 80s and 90s for many weeks yet here on the edge of the Gulf of Mexico. And, as a consequence, we probably have not spent our last weekend watching the "cone of death" on the weather channel and wondering whether the Megalopolis will get up close and personal with named storms like, "Gustav" or "Hannah" or "Igor." Sadly, as much fun as we had this summer, summer died while we were watching TV and I was writing a brief.

Strange how things run down when you're not paying attention, how life gets on "while you're making other plans." For example, I took the picture up top probably 18 months ago, in the depths of winter, at the outdoor pool where I like to swim. The pool is a beautiful, 50 meter, saline pool where all the women are masters, all the men swim in the fast lane, and all the kids are on swim team. It's the best I have ever swum in, and I could use it any time I wanted because I have a full membership to the aquatic center.

But this picture has a certain loneliness to it, the few persons standing there on the side, bundled against the cold. Unseen in the picture are the swimmer kids tearing back and forth, made invisible by the long shutter speed that was necessary to get the shot in the dark. Ghost swimmers, they are. This morning I was swimming with ghosts again.

News has come out that the aquatic center is closing at the end of the year. It's too expensive to run, and the local school system has built its own facility. The highest and best use of the land is not to provide solitary lane space and aquatic meditation for middle aged triathletes. So, this morning, I was the only swimmer, in the darkness, occupying the far lane in an Olympic size pool. The surface of the water and the flags over the pool rippled with the outlying winds of Hurricane Gustav, and maybe with the memory of all swimmer kids and the millions of meters of swimming that they have swum there.

The diving well over there was the haunt of an Olympic gold medalist. Champions beyond number have swum in the pool. But now it is on life support, and I am the only one left. I've heard it said, "if these walls could talk." Where do the achievements go when they knock down the walls and the school records are removed? And what of us who have no written records, those who just go from being unable to swim to being unable to quit swimming.

I suppose it is carried in our muscle memory, maybe our DNA or blood. Maybe we carry it and infect those who come in contact with us, infect them with something good. Maybe we can create antibodies to laziness and average and 9 to 5. Maybe.

I hope so.

Olympics. Seriously?

Well, it’s been a quiet week in Spring, Texas, my home, out on the edge of the Megalopolis. We don’t often receive personal direction from The Almighty, but we think it might have happened this week.

We were in the last weeks before the start of school, and instead of speeding up into that “finish your summer” kick, everything delightfully slowed down. Between the torrential thunderstorms and the debilitating heat, The Almighty made it clear in no uncertain terms that we would be staying inside. Together.

Whilst staying inside, we did have the Olympics to keep us occupied. And that can be both fun and addictive--don’t get me wrong. We've really enjoyed seeing athletes accomplishing their dreams and getting the payoff for lots of hard work. But after awhile, there’s only so much jibber jabber one can take, especially in the “judged” events where there is no clock or finish line to declare the winner. Especially when a totalitarian, host government is willing to exploit underage children in the name of national “pride” by lying about their age. Make no mistake. You only get a passport saying you're 16 in China if the government is involved.

Cheating in the name of pride?

Seriously?

Seriously.

Even in the objective competitions, there are any number of “things that make you go, ‘hmmmmm.’” For example, how many tens of thousands of members does USAT have to have, and how many hundreds of thousands of competitors have to turn out for triathlons before the Olympic triathlon gets some TV time in this country? We televise skeet shooting, synchronized diving, equestrian and rhythmic gymnastics, but not triathlon?

Seriously?

Seriously.

Yeah, I know, the Americans (including our Kiwi competitor Matt Reed) didn’t medal, but is that the standard for what we televise? Do we really need NBC to make us more jingoistic than we already are? I was stoked to see Emma Snowsill run away from the women in the field, even though I’m not an Aussie. And the final rundown between a German, a Canadian, a Kiwi and a Spaniard was one of the most exciting things I’ve ever seen, even though it would be long minutes before the Americans reached the line.

And, while I wish it weren’t true, I exercised my “inner jingo” last night while watching the women’s 200 meter final. Plainly speaking, Veronica Campbell-Brown, when standing still, had the same appearance and body type as Marion Jones, a known doper, or even female body builders who use both testosterone and steroids to create muscle mass that cannot exist on even the most athletic female. In fact, she exceeded Marion Jones in the musculature of her shoulders, neck and thighs, and in the disappearance of anything resembling breasts. Place her next to the thin frames of American sprinters like Allyson Felix, who was taunted with the nickname “chickenlegs” as a child, and the difference is even more striking. Add to this the performance of Usain Bolt, especially in the 100 meters, running away from the fastest men in the world, intentionally slowing, and still shattering the world record.

Call me a nationalist pig, but it could not be clearer to me that jerk chicken and rice is not the only fare served on the Jamaican training table. And not to pick on the Jamaicans, they are certainly not the only ones in the Olympic village with pharmaceutical enhancement. Moreover, we Americans have certainly had more than our share of cheats and dopers. Given that history, have we not learned from Barry Bonds and Mark McGuire and Marion Jones (and, dare I say it, fellow-Texan Roger Clemens)? If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

And just like the chase for Roger Maris’ home run record, the commentators make no mention of what we ought to be seeing with our own eyes. We will all be “shocked” when we “discover” within the next four to eight years that the Jamaican sprinters had a really fantastic pharmacist, probably with the collusion of their sport's national governing body and (likely as not) their national government. All in the name of winning for national “pride.”

This is pride? Seriously?

Seriously.

So, last night, when we’d had enough of the jibber jabber and athlete profiles and sponsored PR on behalf of the totalitarian host state, we turned off the television. We did what book nerds do. Mom, Dad and daughter all curled up on Mom and Dad’s bed with our favorite books and the dogs took their place on the floor for a nap. I flipped through a magazine while my mind wandered to the six mile run I planned for the next morning. Six decidedly non-Olympian miles in a park containing other people with unremarkable bodies, all of us sweating and trying to become what we were intended to be.

That is pride.

Seriously.

Reality Bites

Well, it's been a quiet week in Spring, Texas, my home, out on the edge of the megalopolis. The Groundhog Day commuters managed their sweating, waddling trip to work day after day like they did last week and the week before that since the mind of man runneth not to the contrary. And I was with them. Sort of.

I'm straining against the gravitational pull of normal, and it's kind of painful. I have visions of growing older like the man in the picture above. It's not normal. Nothing desirable ever is. And it requires work. From what my body is telling me this week, it requires constant work, because there is nothing Iron-like remaining in this 41 year old body. I see pictures of someone who looks like me finishing the Ironman in June, but my body is telling me that someone has been playing with photoshop, putting my head on the body of someone with more muscle mass than me. That must have been someone else.

"So . . . . [long pause] . . . yoo gaht phat." That was the observation given me yesterday by Miki, the Serbian drill sergeant that my gym calls a personal trainer. Miki is real subtle that way. A real nurturing presence, that one. "How long since yooo doo r-r-r-r-r-resistance t-r-r-r-rain-ink?"

"Uhm, yeah, since like, I guess in May I did some."

"OK, so vee stahrt ez vit som full body verk, naht tooo hefffy. Vee do kettle bells. Mehbee tvice in week? Ja?"

And yesterday we did. The workout was challenging, but not impossible. "Great," I thought. This is a good, moderate, start. Except this morning, instead of moderate, I feel like I've been interrogated in various stress positions.

And I managed to get myself down to the pool for my first swimming since Ironman. I had sketched out a plan to begin a swimming block this fall, but I could tell from the first few laps that the plan was too ambitious. When you're 41 years old and you haven't swum for two months, you need remedial fitness swimming before you start doing intervals at speed. I wonder if there is room in the senior center's water aerobics class later today? From all appearances, I would fit right in. All I need is the flowerty swim cap and some heavy perfume.

And then there is the running. This is where the fitness stuff all began for me. And this is where I go when I need to start again. Where did my easy 8:30 pace go? I hope it returns when it gets cooler, because right now I'm running on some planet with unbreathable air and 1.8 times the gravity of earth.

So, the constant work begins again. It begins because I hate sinking under the gravitational force of normal. It begins because I have a date with the marathon in January and I will toe the Ironman start line in Mexico one year from November.

And somewhere along the line I'll remember that this constant work isn't work at all. It's play. It's not just about looking much better than normal. It's about living much better than normal. It's about abundance in every waking moment.

Training is recess.

Go play.

Limp and Wilted

Well, it's been a quiet week in Spring, Texas, my home, out here on the edge of the Megalopolis where the coastal plain meets the piney woods.

These are what they call the "dog days" of summer, that time in August where life becomes like an old scratchy, vinyl record--what little you hear is obscured by noise and seems to keep repeating itself, never moving forward.

seems to keep repeat

repeat

seems to keep repeating itse--

never moving for--

forward

Sort of like the movie Groundhog day, only without Bill Murray, romance, humor or popcorn.

Every day starts the same. Even before you get up, the city has started to sweat. It's nearly 80 degrees in the dark, with humidity so high the windows on the houses and the skyscrapers downtown are sweating condensation. Your car sweats as you make your way from the kid friendly zone into the money making zone--i.e., from the suburbs where it is possible to have a yard and a non-lethal school to the central business district where it is possible to have a job capable paying for yard and school. As it happens, these two zones, which are needed by at least a couple million people in the megalopolis, are situated at least 20 or 30 miles away from each other and are designed to be traveled only by internal combustion engine.

I usually do the trek between 4 and 5, and right now, I'm trying to run. There's a bit of a breeze between the buildings downtown, but as soon as you exit the city, every flag is limp and wilted on the flag poles, looking like they've been soaked by a downpour and then baked into place. With no race on the horizon, and no friends to meet, even five miles feels like a chore. A watched Garmin never turns over the next mile. I feel like I'm running the same quarter mile over and over

the same quarter mile over

quarter mile over and

mile over and over

and over.

But even this black hole has little bits of light that escapes. Mother nature reminded us this past week that things are subject to change without notice. One morning on the commute, the freeway signs flashed

STORM FORMING IN THE GULF

FILL YOUR GAS TANK

Tropical Storm Edouard (that's Edward for you Anglo readers who live in those portions of the United States where English is still the common tongue) decided to form off the Cajun Coast and take a sight seeing trip to Houston. Edward turned out to be more like "little Eddie" or maybe Edouarlito, but at least it was variety. It gave the local news something to do other than car wrecks and shootings, and enabled at least one evening walk in temperatures that were marginally survivable.

And there were other milestones to break the monotony of the dog days. Superpounce, newly home from her 2008 World Tour, turned 11 today. She's still a tiny thing, but no longer so tiny that I can hold her entire frame in one arm to feel her first breath of the day---or her first breath ever. She's free of her cast and her ears are newly pierced. She reasoned, "if I can take a broken arm and an IV, then I can stand getting my ears pierced."

And like a Russian trying to weather the endless winter on the featureless steppes, I am managing to anesthetize myself from the sameness of it all with an addiction. With no race goal on the horizon, I've become addicted to Chain Love and Ebay for purposes of pimping out my road bike. Every time I see something new and shiny and carbony, I have to instant my bike adviser, discuss the merits of the new toy, and likely as not, pay for a new "hit" like a junkie in a back alley littered with syringes--or in this case seat posts, saddles, bar tape and handle bars.

And possibly later cranks and shifters and wheels.

If I switch from my triple front chain ring to a double, do I need to change out my shifters, and deraillures too? Should I just go for a whole new gruppo? Wow, that top-of-the-line SRAM Red looks pretty sweet.

**blink**

And like a true addict, the trip I'm on always fails to satisfy--like when Chain Love bitch slapped me with carbon handle bars that were 104 grams lighter than the carbon handle bars I had just purchased barely 4 days before. Sure they were way more expensive, but what's $1 per gram as compared to the unequaled rush of having the carboniest handle bars ever and casting aside that 104 gram anchor that you haven't even installed on your bike yet?

OMG, I so need a training group or a race or a program to shake me from this sweaty-hit-the-snooze-button-and-roll-over-and-have-another-pizza-and-beer-commuter-desk- job-hell that I've fallen into.

Feel free to stage your intervention in the comments.